


Consumed

by Clockwork



Category: teen wolf - Fandom
Genre: Child Death, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 10:45:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clockwork/pseuds/Clockwork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A secret date becomes horror when someone hits dial on Peter's phone in the basement during the fateful Hale fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consumed

Maybe it had been a fluke. A moment of panic as someone reacted without thinking. Perhaps it had been a child’s desperate fingers clutching at whatever lifeline they could find through the smoke and the flames. Maybe it was the universe providing a lifeline, a final goodbye, a chance for more than life was going to provide.

Chris was aware of none of that as he answered the phone though, smiling as he leaned back in the seat of his car. Peter was twenty minutes late, but that wasn’t entirely unusual given his family obligations. Obligations they both ignored, pretending they didn’t exist outside the bubble they had created for themselves.

“You’re la…”

The words died in his throat. 

Screams echoed in his ear; more than one voice. Youthful, terrorized screams that choked on smoke and pain as tender flesh began to char and burn. High, shrill voices begged someone to help, for someone to please open the door. Tiny voices whimpering, asking for Uncle Peter to make it stop, please make it stop.

Bile rose in Chris’ throat as the desperate voices cut off, one at a time. All but one as Peter’s voice emerged in the silence. He demanded that someone not do this, that there were children in the room, that there were humans there. 

Someone was screaming and Chris realized it was himself as he jerked on the gear shift, putting the car into gear. He couldn’t remember the drive from that little bluff where they often met to the looming edifice of the Hale house. The drive, the trees he nearly collided with, the idea of speed limits and traffic laws, all of that was a blur, a lost haze in the face of so many other things.

The scent of wood and metal burning, the sickening tinge that was so close to pork that it he was never able to eat it again. Seeing the smudge of smoke on the sky, a single shade darker than the night. Flames devouring the woods, brilliant shades of crimson and orange that blinded Chris as he stared at them, driving for those flames as if the road didn’t exist.

Then silence. The car skittering to a stop even as silence came through the phone. Nothing but the crackle of flames, the crash of beams falling as the house began to fall to the enemy devouring the building now that the family was gone. 

In the distance he heard sirens but it might well have been a desire, a hope that someone might arrive in time. His hand shook as he reached for the handle, tears streaking down his face, blinding the hunter. 

Someone was coming closer, walking towards him and flanked by two others. Hope welled in Chris’ chest. Peter had made it. Peter was alive. Tear misted eyes couldn’t make out shapes, nothing distinct. In his mind he knew. It was Peter. Peter and their alpha, the girl Laura he hadn’t met. Derek’s sister. He knew that much from Peter as he fed Gerard misinformation to protect them all. He might be lying to his father but he was keeping to the code. That was more important than little lies to protect the innocent.

“Peter,” he whispered, rising up out of the convertible, reaching for the man. Hands so much smaller than his pushed Chris back into the car. 

“Scoot over, Chris. We’ve got to get out of here before .’

Even as Kate pushed him again, sliding behind the wheel the best she could, Chris tried to make sense of it. Not Peter. Not the Hale children. Kate. His sister Kate. Kate and two hunters whose faces he couldn’t see through the tears. 

She never said a word about the name he’d whispered in those moments before reality crashed down onto his heart. She never said a word about the man in a coma, burnt over most of his body; the only survivor of a horrible fire that decimated so many of his family members. She never mentioned knowing about her brother’s affair. One that had led to a seduction of her own. She never said a word.

And Chris never spoke of it again. Not even when his mind tried so desperately to put together the pieces of that night. Peter begging someone to open the door. Kate there to drive him away. The pain filled thoughts that someone he loved so much could take away from him someone that had meant the world to him. He couldn’t think about that, couldn’t let those thoughts consume him. 

All Chris could do was lock away the letters and the mementos that were like those of a teenager first falling in love. Lock them away with part of his heart, and pretend the world was whole and complete with his wife and his daughter, with his sister whom he cherished beyond so much in his life. His sister who couldn’t take the chance that he might love Peter so much more than he did her.


End file.
